As it is now, with historical warplans and against Entente AI, it is possible to capture Paris in August 1914 and win the game quite easily - cavalry corps gets there in two turns and can have artillery reinforcement for the siege.

Since Random knows modding of the game inside out, and I don't have any experience, here are my requests for him:

I have never actually succeeded in capturing Paris in 1914 which probably speaks volumes about my skills as a WW1G Player. Sigh...

Will tinker with this, see what can be done and post updates as available. Please stand by for questions and requests for clarifications as necessary. For starters, if possible this may involve changes to the MapAreas.csv and Units.csv (which have a global impact of the game) and assorted scenario files (Detachments.csv and Nations.csv as a minimum , which affect only the scenario being run) so how would you like it all packaged up?

As far as I know, the Citadel at Brest-Litovsk actually dated from the gunpowder era and had never been updated significantly along with the lines of the fortresses constructed in the 1890's to protect the frontiers I.E. Novogeorgievsk, Osoweicz, Grodno etc. Have never attempted to add fortresses before but will try, a cursory look at the files appears positive. How about a reduced fortress for Brest if possible as I recall that Norman Stone (The Eastern Front 1914-17) refers to the fortifications there as obsolete and outdated.

Increasing Belgium preparedness should be fairly easy to do and I might suggest adding another Corps to the Field Army, which was nominally six-infantry divisions when mobilized. I also need to know if you're using the stock Units.csv file or something else if you wish to add another Belgian Corps to the OOB.

If Belgian Army took automaticaly their bonus, it will became worthless to use the demoralize belgium option or to try to send diplomats in Brussels in the pre-diplo phase.

I have only secceded in taking Paris in 1914 few times, you need a lot of luck to succeded.

- "Good" (for you) french warplan (plan XVII ou XVI for France), plan XX is the perfect anti-Schliffen plan. - good weather - reaching Mons before the BEF- early fall of Anvers. - No transfer of two veteran corps in the East

Random wrote:Thank you for the vote of confidence, will try to be worthy of it!

I have never actually succeeded in capturing Paris in 1914 which probably speaks volumes about my skills as a WW1G Player. Sigh...

Will tinker with this, see what can be done and post updates as available. Please stand by for questions and requests for clarifications as necessary. For starters, if possible this may involve changes to the MapAreas.csv and Units.csv (which have a global impact of the game) and assorted scenario files (Detachments.csv and Nations.csv as a minimum , which affect only the scenario being run) so how would you like it all packaged up?

As far as I know, the Citadel at Brest-Litovsk actually dated from the gunpowder era and had never been updated significantly along with the lines of the fortresses constructed in the 1890's to protect the frontiers I.E. Novogeorgievsk, Osoweicz, Grodno etc. Have never attempted to add fortresses before but will try, a cursory look at the files appears positive. How about a reduced fortress for Brest if possible as I recall that Norman Stone (The Eastern Front 1914-17) refers to the fortifications there as obsolete and outdated.

Increasing Belgium preparedness should be fairly easy to do and I might suggest adding another Corps to the Field Army, which was nominally six-infantry divisions when mobilized. I also need to know if you're using the stock Units.csv file or something else if you wish to add another Belgian Corps to the OOB.

-C

Hi, lately I have been using your GChistorical mod (with the mod changing thingy, JGME or something). I would be happy with GCHistorical2 mod with the proposed changes, if that's ok.

According to Wiki (not the best source, but there you go) Brest-Litovsk was reinforced during 1914. I looked the fort-file (can't remember the name) of the game a few days back, and it includes a major fortification at B-L, but it doesn't appear on the map for one reason or other.

Revan wrote:If Belgian Army took automaticaly their bonus, it will became worthless to use the demoralize belgium option or to try to send diplomats in Brussels in the pre-diplo phase.

I have only secceded in taking Paris in 1914 few times, you need a lot of luck to succeded.

- "Good" (for you) french warplan (plan XVII ou XVI for France), plan XX is the perfect anti-Schliffen plan. - good weather - reaching Mons before the BEF- early fall of Anvers. - No transfer of two veteran corps in the East

I don't care about demoralizing Belgium, or sending diplomats there. I want to beat them militarily, but would prefer some challenge according to historical lines.

Usually there's good weather in August, and a cavalry corps of the 1st Army can march through Belgium against no opposition. Liege will fall on the first turn, so does Namur and Brussels (breakthrough). Mons and Antwerpen will fall on turn 2. I say there's 95% of certainty of this all happening with proper moves. On turn 2 the cavalry will reach undefended Paris, and usually it gets an arty for the oncoming siege, which results in victory. There's no need to transfer anything from the east. It's way too easy!

Just checked, and according to "The World War One Databook" by John Ellis and Michale Cox, Belgian divisions were more akin to small army corps than divisions. Divisions 1, 2, 5 and 6 had 18 infantry battalions, and Divisions 3 and 4 had 24 inf bns. The Germans by the time had 12 inf bns per division.

I'd say there's a pretty strong case for reinforcing the Belgians in the game, even if the number of inf bns alone don't tell the whole story.

Note that the underscore (_) replaces the dash (-) and this is why the fortress defined in the Fortress.csv file does not display on the map.

Save the edited Fortress.csv file and copy-paste into those campaign scenario folders that you might be inclined to use.

Reactivate the desired scenario mod using JSGME and enjoy your new found Brest (Livtosk).

This should not apply to saved games but will take affect when a new game is run.

As for the Belgians, adding extra Corps is no problem. I am trying to figure a way to fire the Belgium Prepared event automatically at no cost to the Entente but failing that will need to resort to manually editing and then uploading a JSGME-ready Stronger Belgium scenario.

Be advised though that a number of the Belgian battalions existed on paper only, many reservists never managed to join the colours on mobilization and the Civil Guard battalions almost all lacked machine guns and combat service-support. Belgian battalions were also smaller than German battalions and there were comparatively few reserve officers and NCO's that managed to mobilize with the reserve formations.

Belgium was a very wealthy nation with a healthy armament industry and a major producer of quality weapons however successive governments starved the field forces of funds, equipment, manpower and training facilities. Military service was unpopular and a social handicap so mere bravery and the core competence of the tiny professional leadership cadre was not enough.

OK; at the request of Forum Member NY Rangers, here's a JSGME ready Stronger Belgium mod:

1. All European BE units are now full strength;
2. A minor Fortress has been added to Namur;
3. A new Belgian III Corps has been added at Genth;
4. The Brest-Litovsk fortress fix discussed above has been applied;
5. The Central Powers get up to two additional event draws;
6. Only the historical War Plans are available; and
7. The French War Plan Option "Belgium Prepares for War" has been removed.

I had time for a quick test. Because of the fort at Namur I had to switch one II Army arty to reserve. It meant that Liege didn't fall on the first turn. Namur and Brussels did. My cavalry reached Mons (as per usual) however, so the problem are the gaps between Antwerp and Liege / Genth and Brussels. Going through Belgium is tougher already, but I'd still like to suggest plugging the gap with the new Belgian Corps (currently located at Genth). What do you think?

On second turn my cavalry reached Paris yet again. Without artillery support the siege wasn't effective though. The gap in initial deployment, which makes deep cavalry exploitation possible, is the problem.

Well, sorry this solution failed to work for you. Unfortunately since I have never been able to duplicate your successes in the first two-turns I can offer no more assistance on the ease of taking Paris in the grand campaign.

Random wrote:Well, sorry this solution failed to work for you. Unfortunately since I have never been able to duplicate your successes in the first two-turns I can offer no more assistance on the ease of taking Paris in the grand campaign.

-C

Do note that Paris has not been captured yet, and the narrowness of the gap is a problem for me. It is already more challenging, thanks to you. It still could be tweaked so that an unchallenged march deep behind the enemy lines wouldn't be possible.

The really interesting thing about this is that the armies of that day would not do the really deep raiding that you talk about. Everybody was to concerned about covering their flanks to stick their noses out houndreds of miles behind enemy territory. WW2 Blitzkreig is another matter, and even then when thrusts went to deep they could be cut off and destroyed (like what happened to the Russians on the Eastern Front several times).

It still could be tweaked so that an unchallenged march deep behind the enemy lines wouldn't be possible.

At the risk of drifting off topic I think your observations highlight an often overlooked aspect of the 1914 campaign in the West so I would like to throw out some opinions and try to relate them back to the way the WW1G handles the situation. Apologies in advance for being verbose.

The guiding light of the late Wilhelmine army was not Alfred von Schlieffen but Helmut von Molkte the Elder, victor of the 1864 war against Denmark, the 1866 war against Austria and the 1870-71 war against France. Von Moltke essentially created the Great General Staff and indeed the Staff system used by virtually every professional military even today but he was no military genius. Indeed, his system was predicated on the fact that the presence of genius cannot be guaranteed but competence could be learned and practised and always available. In the absence of genius, a systematic and thorough approach to military problems would lead to finding the "correct" solution to any tactical or strategic problem. The side that was best at this would prevail and he determined to make the German Army General Staff the best in the world.

One of the major lessons of the limited wars that he won for Prussia was that political victory lay with the destruction of the opposing army. Cities like Paris for example were military objectives only provided their capture aided in the goal of the destruction of the enemy army in the field. Sieges were to be avoided, Sevastopol in the Crimea, Petersburg in the US Civil War and Paris itself in 1871 constituted black-pits where the combat power of the immobilized Field Army was whittled away by attrition and the defender grew ever stronger. Destroy the enemy's army quickly and he would come to the negotiating table, particularly if the political terms were not too onerous.

So despite all those neat maps of the Schleiffen Plan's arrows swinging around Paris, which have their origins not in any contemporary German sources but a US Military Academy atlas of the War published around 1922-23 and copied uncritically ever since; it's very unlikely that Paris on its own was a major military objective. Rather the objective was to place the bulk of the German field army where the bulk of the French army was not and the way to do that was through Belgium. A.J.P. Taylor's romantic vision of von Schleiffen agonizing over the problem alone in his study, trying to conjure a modern-day Cannae are just plain silly propaganda and it would be difficult to find a battle plan less Cannae-like than that roughed out in Schleiffen's memorandum of 1906 - prepared after he had retired as Chief of the Great General Staff.

Von Moltke the Younger, who replaced von Schlieffen did not ruin the "Great Man's Perfect Plan" tinkering with it, but he did agree that the only way for Germany to win a two front war was to defeat France first. Schleiffen's plan from the 1906 memo was a farce, he himself admitted that some 11-additional Active divisions (at least five 6-7-4 Corps in game terms) would be required but these did not exist and the money to raise them could never be rung from the Reichstag particularly given the massive increases in the defence budget caused by the building of the High Seas Fleet. Even if the money had been there, the institutional resistance from the General Staff itself to opening the Army officer corps to the middle and merchant classes was very strong so any new Corps would have no leadership. Simply put, for economic, political and social reasons the Kaiser's army was not going to get appreciably larger without major taxation and social reforms. The eastern provinces of France, heavily fortified from the 1880's on did not allow for a decision that would enable the French field forces to be decisively beaten. The only way to do this was place the German army in a position where they would fight at an advantage. Von Moltke the Younger had a far better grasp than Schleiffen on the strategic realities facing Germany and he predicted that (A) There would be a war and (B) Germany probably lacked the strength to win against a combination of France, Russia and England.

One of von Moltke the Elder's military maxims was that no plan ever survived contact with the enemy and therefore the astute commander had to, in effect, "Take his orders from the Enemy". To that end German Army commanders were given tremendous latitude in executing operations within their area of responsibility and since all were inculcated to a common strategic goal, each could be expected to support each other without interference from the Great General Staff headquarters. So, come the day von Moltke the Younger opted for a hands-off approach towards his Army commanders and the campaign brought great tactical success but strategic defeat; each commander lost sight of the main objective of defeating the entire French army although for the most part they were successful at beating those portions of it to their immediate fronts.

A big part of von Moltke the Younger's problem was that not only did he fail to keep his subordinates focussed on the ultimate goal, he failed to read the situation correctly and it's very likely that the massed conscript armies that Germany herself had created were now far too big to be defeated in the style of warfare that the German Army excelled at.

Before 1914 there was no such thing as a Continuous Front in warfare. Armies frequently operated with their flanks in the air for extended periods and this was largely because of their size and the communications and transportation infrastructure in the areas where military operations occurred. Those vast open areas that you see in the opening months of a WW1G campaign are intentional and largely correct since that was the situation before the masses of troops spread out laterally until the flanks closed at the Channel and the Swiss border respectively. However, while the gaps existed strategic mobility was essentially equal, the sustained pace of the marching soldier, exploiting those huge gaps was difficult if not impossible. The French also had the priceless asset of a rail net that concentrated at Paris and so had big advantage in lateral mobility, exactly when it was needed most.

The role of those big German cavalry Corps was not to race for cities because cities in themselves were not important. What was important was finding and fixing the enemy main forces, seizing the ground of tactical importance and then annihilating the enemy using the centralized firepower of machine guns, howitzers and to a lesser extent, massed aimed rifle fire. This was why the real Battles of the Frontiers were so bloody, no four-month phase of the Great War saw more casualties than August-November 1914. It is also why tactical German success failed to translate into strategic German victory.

Sending independent cavalry Corps through unoccupied territory to The City of Light may be a operational decision that works in the game and who knows if doing so in the event might have yielded better results for von Moltke the Younger. I wonder though how well it would work against a human opponent but also in my opinion consider the game does a pretty good job at reflecting the realities of the situation overall and you have not described anything that was not impossible at the time.

For references on my heresies above, see Dupuy A Genius for War, Zuber The Battle of the Frontiers and The Real German War Plans 1906-1914 and Herwig The Marne 1914. Information relating to the economic and social implications of increasing the size of the Wilhelmine army may be found in Ferguson The Pity of War.

NY Rangers wrote:The solution is to place the new Belgian Corps to Mechelin or Louvain instead of Genth. Random, are you still interested in helping me out?

The choice of Genth was deliberate and an acknowledgement of Belgium's real-world situation. Since Belgium was supposed to be neutral, mobilization plans called for the field army to guard against all potential invaders. A significant portion of the army mobilized near Genth to protect the coast from British invasion; the reinforced, fortified city of Liege and covering forces in the Ardennes against Germany; another force around Charlroi and Dinant (but in the game deployed to nearby Namur) facing France and the central reserve to reinforce whatever the threat axis was determined to be.

Placing III Corps at Genth adheres to this principal and don't forget that the mechanism exists in the game where the Entente can invade Belgium, something considered by both Britain and France in the years leading up to 1914. I did and do think that a stronger Belgium should be stronger against all-comers.

You can simply edit the entry in the [color="#00FF00"]Detachments.csv[/color] file to place III Corps wherever you wish, just ensure that the spelling of whatever province you wish is identical to the name of that province from the [color="#00FF00"]MapAreas.csv[/color] file in the ...\GoldMaps folder.

Random wrote:You can simply edit the entry in the [color="#00FF00"]Detachments.csv[/color] file to place III Corps wherever you wish, just ensure that the spelling of whatever province you wish is identical to the name of that province from the [color="#00FF00"]MapAreas.csv[/color] file in the ...\GoldMaps folder.

In real life I don't think it was possible to march a German cavalry corps unopposed to Paris. My goal is that it is not possible in the game either.

Don't know if it was practical or not but in real life that was never the role of the independent German cavalry Corps. Elements did get quite close so a dash towards the outer fortified zone of Paris was certainly within the realms of probability although it is unlikely to have had any positive effects for von Kluck or von Bulow's armies. By 2 September 1914, II Cavalry Corps (LGen von Marwitz) had been committed to operations near Senlis, about 20-miles from Paris but by then the French Sixth Army was already deploying in defence of the city. An example of that accelerated lateral strategic movement I wrote about above.

In game terms the German's were probably adjacent to Paris by that time.

Revan wrote:If Belgian Army took automaticaly their bonus, it will became worthless to use the demoralize belgium option or to try to send diplomats in Brussels in the pre-diplo phase.

I have only secceded in taking Paris in 1914 few times, you need a lot of luck to succeded.

- "Good" (for you) french warplan (plan XVII ou XVI for France), plan XX is the perfect anti-Schliffen plan. - good weather - reaching Mons before the BEF- early fall of Anvers. - No transfer of two veteran corps in the East

Well.. it is quite easy and very much possible to capture Paris in 1914 barring bad luck.
Follow these generic steps(somewhat gamey but needed to recreate the right wing's actual movement)
TURN I
1. your 3 cavalry corps (1st and 2nd army) must be split up and designated to only 1st army individually.
2. Manually send these 3 cavalry, 1 to mons, 1 to charleroi and 1 towards ghent.
3. give one 'regular corps' to II army from Ist and send to antwerp
4. move detachment of II to namur
5. move main II to leige, keep all 3 seige guns in the reserves.
6. send 2 of those coastal guns to MOLTKE and 1 to POSEN to help HINDENBURG
7. VIII army on intercept, 2 rounds and retreat to konigsberg to catch the pesky 2nd army of russians.
8. Austrians- anything (i prefer KOENIG or EUGEN)
9. Move main Ist army to brussels and breakthrough to charleroi. (keep artillery in reserve and move manually using shift key)
10. in events try to pick "MATA/BOLO" to help see the enemy troops.
11. Send III army to Dinant.
End TURN

Note: take volunteers and munitions option and good morale as GERMANY, always keep artillery in reserve and veterans in front and let them fight out without support for first round, some casualties are ok, but you need your speed.

Second TURN (August)
1. LIEGE and ANTWERP should have fallen (LUCK matters here - do not storm them-- hoplelessly bad casualties)
2. send II army to MAUBENGE and IV to SEDAN and III to REIMS (try to get there else throw troops to exhaustion)
3. I army cavalry should now capture channel ports, lilee and meet at amiens or lilee.. whichever you like.
4. Main Ist army launch towars peronne (artillery still in reserve)
5. Your only opponents are- VI French and those blasted BEF.

TRY your best to break through to PARIS.. you have septemeber & october to reach and NOV-DEC to storm paris. even if one turn is gone, next turn keep marching ahead, do no bother about flanks ever, Ist army is very powerful and GUARDS should be attached to Ist army to make it even more powerful, II and III and IV can keep fighting the french.

7/10 games- PARIS will fall in OCT or NOV-DEC. unless bad luck and your Ist army sits on its a** in some turn. doesn't matter what plan French take, your armies have quantity and quality edge over France.

P.S.: - only good against AI, i have even succeeded against full aggression and full hard AI. A human player will cut your supply using cavalry and then you will be in a mess.

Good summary there, Random.I can only add that the commanders of the Geraman armies that were to rush through Northern France hindered it each other on the way to Paris, disturbing each others marching columns, because evrybody, and especially von Kluck, wanted the honour to take the enemy capital for themselves. Also the plan failed because of the common tactic of the times, to crush through the enemy lines with columns of massed infantry. That way the Prussians had beaten Napoleons army in 1870. But since then the invention of the machinegun had rendered this strategy pathetic.

I can only add that the commanders of the Geraman armies that were to rush through Northern France hindered it each other on the way to Paris, disturbing each others marching columns, because evrybody, and especially von Kluck, wanted the honour to take the enemy capital for themselves.

I certainly believe that it is accurate that the army commanders did hinder, or at least not help each other during the advance. However I suspect that the root cause was less due to the desire to capture Paris and more to operational and doctrinal flaws in the way that the German Army was organized and trained at the time. It is apparent that von Moltke the Younger adapted a hands-off command style similar to that employed successfully by his famous uncle in 1870 but the operational conditions that he faced were much more daunting and complex. Likewise the appointment of senior army commanders' to command there own and flanking armies left much to be desired. Russia had already introduced the intermediate Army Group command HQ, the French Army would do so before the end of September but it took somewhat longer for the German's to realize that when one exercises operational control over their own and a neighbouring formation, the door opens to prioritizing the formation under direct command to the detriment of the subordinate formation. I suspect that this explains the effects that you allude to rather than some misguided sense of personal honour. Army Group command became essential and I suspect that had the German's developed and trained for the concept in the pre-war years it might have served them better in the 1914 campaign in the West.

As for the rest, it is interesting to read Zuber's accounts of the Battle of the Frontiers and how the German Army prepared to fight defensively even when on the offensive. By exploiting the marching ability of the Active battalions, they tended to seize the ground of tactical importance and then break French attempts to get the ground back by using superior firepower, centralized controlled artillery and massed machine guns. This provided a winning tactical formula that proved itself at such varied actions as Rossignol in August 1914, the Ourcq in September and on the Alsatian plateau of Hartmanswillerkopf in December. One big problem that the German's did have is that they were seldom able to translate tactical/operational success into strategic victory but they were hardly alone in framing their strategic vision in terms of wishful thinking and chauvinistic assumptions that caused them to repeatedly come to grief.

By some accounts- Belgian army was 117000 strong at start of war i.e. 3 corps (German Army sized corps), now due to lack of heavy artillery, paucity of machine guns, trained officers and NCO's this can be considered as 1 Cavalry Corps, 1 Regular Army Corps, 1 Reserve Corps and 1-2 Mobilised Corps at half strength guarding the fortresses - this is actually represented. By some accounts some 350000 men were mobilised, this figure seems too high; appro.x 200000 would be maximum including militia battalions. . that would make it 2 Mobilised corps i.e. 1-LIEGE, 1-ANTWERP, 1 Reserve corps for Brussels, 1 Cavalry in Reserve, 1 Reserve at Genth and 1 Regular at Namur.

The regular, cavalry and mobilised are already there.. 2 Reserve Corps can be added.. also all/most of them should be at half strength at start and not have any added firepower.

Army Group strategy was most effectively utilised by the Germans, witness the creations of Rupprecht, Albrecht, Kronprinz and Luitpold commands (also the fact all these nominal controllers were Royal Crown Princes).In the German army system the Commanders were relatively unimportant- this was the main tactical innovation of Graf Moltke Sr. alongwith the recognition of Railways- "Build Railways not forts doctrine". The most important person was the Chief of Staff(CoS), for eg: CoS of Rupprecht's VI army was the CoS of the old Bavarian Army, CoS of KronPrinz's V army was deputy CoS of old Prussian Army etc.Further, LUDENDORFF post 1916 had made the German Defense expert Von Lossberg (a mere Colonel like Bruchmuller) the roving CoS of any command of the Western Front which was under attack.

As the CoS was always from the controlling elite of the GENERAL STAFF (less than 600 officers controlling all the important branches- Railways, Operations, Signals, Intelligence, Command & Control, Personnel, Postings, Fortifications, Logistics), he knew what was the whole plan and what needed to be done, till the Chief was competent like Graf Moltke or Falkenhyn or Ludendorff the system ran well, when an incompetent political favorite like Jr. Moltke came the system crashed.